


The Crimson Beneath

by nightsofreylo



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Arousal During Battle, Brief mention of rape/non-con outside of Reylo, Come Marking, Eventual Major Character Death (Leia), Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Force Bond, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, Post-TLJ, Renperor Elements, Sex Through the Force Bond, Touch-Starved, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-24 16:05:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13217262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsofreylo/pseuds/nightsofreylo
Summary: Tearing it all down makes his blood sing with righteous vengeance. When Ben executes their false kings and sends the crimson flag of the First Order streaming from the old temple gates, he wishes Rey were there to see it.One day, she will understand.





	The Crimson Beneath

It is her scream that sends the first tremor along Ben’s spine. It is primal and gut-wrenching, rising from the depths of Rey’s lungs. A scream born from the heat of battle and the scent of charred armor. He doesn’t have time to find her with his eyes, not with the Praetorian guards pressing him from all sides, but something inside of him responds to her.

This is the way they were made to fight.

His blade pierces through the chest of the guard before him. Ben rips it away, his blood pounding and his mind gloriously _empty_ of everything except for her and the pulse of the lightsaber in his hands.

The Enemy’s body is halved, his torso face-down on the floor. Ben has never felt this kind of peace in all his life. His mind has become clear as the surface of a river…and he is flowing, flowing onward towards the ocean…and he knows that in the ocean, there is the island. And on the island, there is the mirror. And in the mirror, there is only he and Rey.

_Rey._

Ben searches for her, finding her backpedaling before one of the guards across the room. The red-clad warrior jabs at her, and she is just a millisecond too slow for his blade. It draws a crimson line across the flesh of her shoulder. It is nothing, just a scratch, it won’t even need bacta…but Ben’s breath comes short.

He gazes on the parted skin, the red of her blood beneath, for a moment too long. And there it is again, that tremor that passes through his whole body and consumes him.

When the Praetorian guards advance on him, he refocuses and readies himself. Ben falls back into her presence, into the energy between them, but his concern for her is not something that shuts him down. It wakes him up, something instinctive directing his steps, his mind blazing with a single thought.

_It’s just us now._

His blade flashes with broad strokes, dragging through armor and flesh and the floor and whatever else dares to stand between him and her. Though he is outnumbered, the guards don’t have Ben Solo’s purpose. They don’t know his heart.

But when his saber is knocked from his hand with a heavy blow, he loses his footing. The anonymous faceplate of the Praetorian helmet advances on him, a blade swiping at his ankles. Ben stumbles back to avoid it, ceding ground. In an instant, the guard is behind him and there is a pressure on his throat. He grips the metal of the weapon instinctively, the hum of a vibroblade close to his ear. His leather gloves give, the blade inching closer to his throat, so close that he doesn’t risk reaching out to call his saber to him.

He is not afraid. He knows their future, and that it does not end here.

“Ben!” Rey screams, but this time it is not a wordless scream. It is his name, torn from her throat, raw and commanding.

He lets go, trusting her without fully understanding, reaching out for what he knows will be there even before he feels its weight slam into his palm. He ignites the lightsaber - his lightsaber, or hers, it doesn’t matter anymore.

There is nothing that belongs to him that doesn’t belong to her.

 

* * *

 

When the Supreme Leader thinks about that moment, he thinks of white salt parting to reveal red mineral. He thinks of the flesh of Rey’s shoulder and the blood that she spilled fighting for him. He thinks of her scream, a crimson scream that sends a now-familiar shudder through him.

Ben beats on the walls of the bond ceaselessly, even though he knows it is useless. He doesn’t know if their connection only occurs when the Force wills it, or when they both will it, but either way, the space between them is heavy and deathly silent. He doesn’t stop, though, knowing she’ll give in to him eventually. She must. He saw their future, and so did she. But she is still so stubborn, clinging to the past, a frightened little girl who won’t let go of what is already dead.

Ben’s past was left behind on the floor of the _Supremacy_ , a crumpled gold-spun robe and an ancient creature that called him by a name that was not his own. He killed it for her. He ascended the throne of his oppressor and offered Rey half of everything he is.

Though she rejected him, he knows she cannot cut herself off from him entirely, however much she tries to hide from him. Even with half a galaxy between them, Ben can feel the whisper of her at the corners of his mind, but she won’t let him in. He wonders if this is about Skywalker. Surely she cannot be so foolish as to still cling to the memory of a dead man, knowing what Skywalker has done to him.

“They’re both gone,” he tells her, the same thing he’s whispered for the past two-hundred and ninety standards. It is a chant, a litany, a song. He says it when he rises in the morning and when he lays down in the evening. “It’s just us. They’re gone. They’re gone. Let them go.”

She still doesn’t come to him.

 

* * *

 

In the deepest hours of the night, he aches for Rey’s presence, touch-starved and lonely and unable to sleep.

The memories of her are fading with time. They merge and coalesce like smoke. The timeline is all wrong when he tries to piece them back together. Everything without her is chaos and disorder.

They are back-to-back, his blade arching through the air. She uses him, uses him, uses him. His body belongs to her. Everything is crimson when her hand grips the juncture between his hip and thigh, and he feels her weight against his back as if their alignment is the most natural thing in the universe. Her body slumps to the ground, released from the Enemy’s hold, and Ben rages that he ever let that viper touch her. There is rain against his face, cold and soothing, quieting the anger - his glove comes away wet. He removes the glove, wanting to feel her. His skin is stretched parchment-thin. Her blazing fingertips brush his from across the void.

She burns so bright. It burns him up inside.

A tremor passes through him and his cock hardens beneath his robes, just as it had in the throne room. Except this time, he can recognize the difference between the exertion of his body and his response to her. It is a response he once associated with weakness. Even now, when Ben shifts his robes aside and reaches a hand down to feel what the memory of her has done to him, the remnant voice of the Enemy speaks to him of degradation and filth.

_You abase yourself with this act!_

Ben senses that this too is a lie, but nausea rises in him against his will. He removes his hand, even though he knows there is no punishment waiting for him, clenching it into a fist at his side. If Rey were here, he knows that it would be better. She is pure, her touch purifies him.

With her, nothing would be base and everything would be sacred.

 

* * *

 

The Siege of Nostram lasts for six days and nights. As Supreme Leader, Ben is not expected on the front lines, and Hux is insufferable in his attempts to persuade him to remain behind.

It is to no avail. Ben craves a release and a fight is the only way he will get it. Nostram is a walled fortress of blast-resistant metal, presenting the kind of challenge that he is so rarely confronted with. It was once a great city, but now it is run by an oligarchical ring of slave-traders. Tearing it all down makes his blood sing with righteous vengeance. When Ben executes their false kings and sends the crimson flag of the First Order streaming from the old temple gates, he wishes Rey were there to see it.

One day, she will understand.

 

* * *

 

After the siege is complete, when they are safe on the nearby First Order base near the meridian of the tundra planet of Isold, Ben begins to dream a strange dream. In it, his mother is very young. Younger than he remembers her ever being. Dressed in white, her hands smooth along the rounded curve of her belly. And Ben is there, too, suspended in the warmth and the darkness. She sings to him, a simple Alderaanian verse that he has half-forgotten.

 

_You were born under summer stars, my child._

_They will call you by name and by song._

_May you grow beneath them, carefree and wild,_

_And rule long after the summer is gone._

 

It should be beautiful to him. His mother’s voice, singing to him. But there is a sickness inside of her that is spreading. It’s him. He is the sickness. His dream is a nightmare and he wakes screaming, night after night.

 

* * *

 

The bond opens when he least expects it. It is marked by a gentle shift in the Force before everything aligns perfectly, and Ben sees Rey for the first time in nearly a year. From his side of the connection, she appears curled up in a strange position on the steps leading down into his quarters, right by the entrance. Her knees are tucked into her chest, head leaning back into something unseen. Her eyes are closed, dark lashes shadowed against freckled cheeks. He is forced to swallow hard as he takes in the delicate column of her neck.

She is dressed in plain clothing: a three-quarter sleeve gauzy tunic that is tied at her waist and a pair of sleep shorts. Her legs and feet are bare, leaving so much of her tanned skin uncovered to him. The dark strands of her hair are pulled up, slightly damp and curling near the base of her neck. There is a faint pink flush upon her cheeks. Wherever she is, it is humid and warm. He imagines the shores of a mediterranean seaport, lush with exotic plants and foam-green waters, with a cool breeze at night.

Her eyelashes flutter slightly and his throat tightens.

 _No, please…don’t wake up…Let me stay here with you._  

Her eyes remain closed. Ben is waiting, breath caught in his chest, unable to move. This is what he has yearned for, but after so long apart, he is paralyzed by her sudden closeness.

“I can feel you here,” she whispers, her pretty, curved mouth barely moving. He realizes that perhaps she was never asleep. Her voice is soft and sad. “Please…please leave me alone.”

“I didn’t do this,” he denies her gently, amused that she thinks he has any control over their connection. He has practically been pounding at the barrier between them with his fists for the past year, with no success. “Open your eyes.”

He wants her to look at him. He wants to unfold her and see the red inside. He wants to make her admit what they are to each other. He wants to hear his name on her tongue once again.

Rey finally opens her eyes and he thinks he might come undone, just like that. Her gaze roams over his face, lingering on the scar she gave to him. Her appraisal of him is bold. She casts her eyes back and forth over his features, as though her memories of him have also faded with time and she is seeing him anew. Her rough scavenger hands tighten around her calves when her gaze falls to his lips. Then lower, to his shoulders. His chest. She shifts and takes in a tiny little breath. He is desperate to know what she sees when she looks at him.

“I didn’t mean to let this happen again,” she confesses.

Ben can see the tension coiled in her body, pulled taught like a power cable, ready to snap. He tilts his head, trying to understand. There is a vulnerability in her expression. Wide-eyed and silent, she has made herself as small as possible, not wanting to admit the reason she has reached out to him after all this time. Through the Force, Ben senses something unknown and perhaps unknowable…an emptiness inside of her…aching and waiting to be filled.

His throat goes dry as he finally comprehends. His cock swells and hardens, pressing painfully against the fabric that confines it. Ben curses his own inexperience, stunned that he had not identified the feeling of her arousal immediately. He is not entirely ignorant; he should have known that her need would be different in kind from his own. He steps forward cautiously, silently asking for permission as he kneels before her on the steps. Rey doesn’t move, still curled in on herself, her bright hazel eyes fixed on his.

She reaches out thoughtlessly to brush the pads of her fingertips against the skin beneath his right eye, her brow furrowing in concern. Slowly, she traces her finger down along the grooved flesh of the scar - _monster, murderous snake_ \- and he is afraid to move for fear that she will stop. The connection deepens. A sigh of relief escapes her, as though that minimal contact has eased some of the ache inside of her. She pulls her hand away, curling it into a fist against her heart.

He needs more, but doesn’t want to scare her.

“Have you ever felt like this before?” he asks.

Her eyes narrow, looking at him sharply. He wonders if he has offended her yet again. Always saying the wrong thing.

“Of course,” she answers coldly. “I know what this is.”

“You do?” he murmurs curiously.

Rey remembers, and so does he, marveling at how willing she is to allow him to share her thoughts. He sees her as a young girl, perhaps only fourteen, victorious from the sale of a rare Corellian power coupling. There is a bag full of rations on the table in her fallen AT-AT, enough to feed her for two months.

Ben can taste the slightly salty insta-bread on her tongue, accompanied by the feeling of a slightly distended belly. She is overfull from eating so much after such a long period of semi-starvation. His eyes go wide, a sudden hatred for the parents who abandoned her flooding his chest, but he bites his tongue for fear of insulting her further. Her makeshift bed rocks as she crawls into it, still not entirely satisfied. Ben feels the press of her hand against her lower stomach through her light desert clothing, then along her inner thigh. Her elation turns to confusion, because she has given her body everything it needs, yet there is still a demanding ache between her legs.

“You do,” he whispers, fascinated by her early encounters with her own body.

“Isn’t it the same for you?” she asks.

“No, I think it’s different. But the want is more or less the same.”

“Different how?”

Ben wants to tell her exactly how different, how complimentary, their needs are. He is wants to open her and fill her; she wants to be opened and filled.

“You and I are made differently,” he says instead, vaguely.

“I know how men are made,” Rey replies instantly, her expression hardening.

The next memories are crude: a vaguely humanoid male pissing outside a tent, his member flaccid and filthy, surrounded by sweat-drenched, wiry hairs. A younger version of Rey accidentally stumbling upon a masked junker, his hands and knees pinning a scavenger woman down in the semi-darkness of a hulking destroyer. His alien shaft pistons in and out of her. His female partner’s willingness is dubious, if his brutal thrusts are any indication, and Rey turns and runs before the junker ever looks up. And lastly, a clean but dead-eyed pleasure-slave standing outside of a solid structure in Jakku, his cock rash-red with untreated disease and restrained at the base, offering himself to Rey for a mere handful of credits.

Ben flinches away, her disgust with the male form apparent. But underneath that disgust there is still a glimmer of untainted curiosity, as if part of her knows that none of that is the way things are meant to be. Ben hates that this is what she has been taught to expect from men. Something protective wells up within him, begging him to show her otherwise, insisting that she would not be repulsed by _him_.

“No,” he says. “You don’t.”

The hard look in her eyes softens.

“Ben, I-”

 

* * *

 

Their connection ends so abruptly that it takes Ben several moments to collect himself. He stumbles to his feet, staring down at the steps where Rey had been curled only moments before, close enough to touch. His skin feels pulled taught over his body, his cock still so hard that it is nearly painful.

He sheds his clothes like a second skin, discarding every last scrap on the floor. They are an insult to her. He stands completely naked before the steps, sighing in relief when he wraps his fingers around the base of his shaft. His mind stays mercifully silent for once in his life, his thoughts centered only on Rey.

She has been lonely, just like him. Craving his touch as much as he craves hers.

It has been so long since he has explored this part of himself. He doesn’t immediately feel the pleasure he expects. Instead, the touch is a small kind of comfort. He skims his fingers lightly along the sensitive underside of his shaft, flattening his thumb in a circle around the head, swiping away the bead of fluid gathering at the tip.

If she were here, he would press his thumb against her lips and let her swipe his precum away with her tongue.

He groans from deep in his chest at the thought, his grip tightening on his shaft as he creates a channel for himself with his fist. His breathing grows labored as he thrusts into his own hand, knowing instinctively that he is really seeking the heat and tightness of Rey’s body. He wants to watch his cock disappear inside of her the way it is pushing into his hand.

Without having ever seen her most intimate parts, he isn’t quite able to conjure the image of her the way he wants, so he focuses on what he knows instead. He knows the sound of her screaming his name in a crimson room, he knows her strained grunts and cries…but they’re all wrong somehow. Those sounds were not made in pleasure, but in anger and frustration.

The elevator! He focuses on the way she had looked at him in the elevator as they ascended together. The light playing with her features, her hair spilling over her shoulders. Her eyes, so trusting. _Ben. I’ll help you._ That’s what he needs, that soft whisper of _Ben_ on her lips as he buries himself inside of her and coaxes pleasure from her.

He strokes his cock faster, gasping very desperately now, the sound of his breathing loud in the silence of his chambers. He has to be quieter. If he is quiet, no one will know. His hand tightens with every upstroke, then gentles as he thrusts back against his palm and through his fingers. A choked shout escapes his lips, echoing against the walls. It’s impossible not to make sound when his mind is thinking of Rey’s bare skin pressed against his. He imagines her eyes clouded with pleasure, her thighs parted and her body taking everything he offers to her.

His body seizes up as thick ropes of white come spill out of his cock, over his fingers, onto the steps. He continues thrusting into his hand, shouting hoarsely as more of his come is released with each stroke. Closing his eyes to reality of his cold room, he imagines instead the intimate connection of Rey’s small, warm body accepting what belongs to her.

 

* * *

 

The Resistance has rebuilt slowly to a force of five hundred or so fighters and twenty-five ships. Rey never formally enlists, but she follows them wherever they go in the _Falcon_ , wanting to stay close to Finn and the others. The thought of being alone is unbearable and helping to rebuild the Resistance has provided a welcome distraction.

There is perhaps no safer place for the small band of fighters than Alvarrisk. It is a small moon tucked away in a distant corner of the galaxy. There are no civilizations nor sentient species native to its system. Once a week, Rey sees a solitary ship cross the horizon, but it doesn’t land on Alvarrisk. Its destination is the planet below. Poe Dameron tells her that it is a private ship, its codes linked back to a pharmaceutical company that harvests medicinal plants.

Alvarrisk itself is wild and beautiful, but most of its plants are poisonous rather than medicinal. The landscape is covered in lush growth and brightly-colored flowers, some as tall as people. It is warm and dense and quiet, a shelter from the chaos that reigns in far-away systems.

The Resistance ships take refuge in a small bay near the coast, closed in on three sides by mountains. Its waters are green and clear. When they first arrived, Rey and a handful of others took a daring leap from one of the tall shelves on the side of the mountain into the water, the rush of air and the sudden immersion reminding her of…

No. She will not think of the cave on Ahch-to, or the mirror, or _him_.

Because after seeing Ben for the first time in nearly a year, Alvarrisk no longer feels safe. It feels…stifling. Lonely.

When Leia announces that they are leaving the sticky-sweet moon behind for the neutral environment of deep space, Rey is secretly relieved. Ever since the connection between her and Ben was unexpectedly interrupted, she has felt even more on edge than usual. The reason she called out to him in the first place, the powerful ache inside of her, grows so much worse. No matter what she does, no matter how furiously she rubs at the sensitive place between her thighs, there doesn’t seem to be any relief. She tries to meditate, but the heavy air makes her tired, and when she sleeps she returns to a recurring nightmare of a dark room and a woman singing a lullaby.

When the Resistance ships depart, she decides to keep the _Falcon_ in the hangar bay of the main ship. Command assigns her a room on board, for which she is immensely grateful. She is afraid of being alone with her thoughts. She is even more afraid of what she might do if the bond flares to life again.

Shortly after boarding, Rey sits a medical evaluation for the first time in her life. It is required as a part of standard protocol. The other fighters don’t seems as nervous as Rey. She has never been examined by a medic, not even when she cut her arm on a jagged piece of metal in a star destroyer and burned with fever for three days.

In the privacy of a brightly-lit room, a medic named Brih asks her to remove her clothing and put on a white, clinical robe. It’s not as bad as Rey expects, even when Brih arrives at more intimate places. She tells Rey exactly where she is going to put her hands before she examines each part of Rey’s body and places scan-droids at key points.

The medic asks very simple questions as she moves - _Does this hurt when I press here, or here? Can you tell me where this scar came from?_ \- and marks down each answer on the data pad.

The pelvic exam is strange to Rey. She looks up at the ceiling when Brih presses a scanning device inside the small opening between her thighs. Touching herself there is something Rey has always avoided, assuming that it would be painful, but she feels only the cold, neutral pressure of the device.

When Brih is done, Rey sits up and pulls the robe closed, allowing a tiny, hovering medi-droid to scan her eyes and put a tickly sensor in her ear. The vaccines are easy, one shot in each shoulder that Brih tells her will ache for a few days.

The medic also places a standard-issue reproductive implant in her forearm. It comes with a holo-guide. The other girls who received the implant laugh about that over lunch, rolling their eyes as though it is a joke, but Rey thumbs at the little disc in her pocket. She thinks back to what Ben said about her not knowing how men are made.

The first time she has a moment alone, Rey watches the informational holo-vid. She doesn’t find it silly at all. It is simple and clinical, with diagrams of the male and female forms and explanations of her cycles, stages of sexual arousal, and fetal development. The breadth of the information is fascinating to Rey. An older woman on Jakku had once vaguely explained to her that the coupling of a man and a woman could lead to disease and unwanted children. Beyond that simple warning, all of Rey’s knowledge of herself was external, discovered through touch on the rare occasions where she could spare the energy.

What lies underneath is more fascinating than she could have known.

 

* * *

 

 

“Now isn’t a good time,” Rey hears Ben say sharply.

“It’s not a good time for me either,” Rey mumbles back to him, peering out from under her blankets to look at her chron. She is still adjusting to the change in time. The marina at Alvarrisk had uneven days and nights, weighted strongly towards nighttime. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Very well, General. Tell the councilors they may enter.”

She sits up straight in bed, suddenly very awake. Ben is there, in the plain chair near the corner of her room, his gloved fist clenched around its armrest as he speaks with some unseen officer. Otherwise, his body is lax, graceless and bored. His clothes are fine, spun from dark threads, but still simple and unaffected.

“Councilors,” he addresses his new audience. There must be some dull exchange of formality, because Ben sighs affectedly, looking directly at Rey. And then he smiles darkly.

“Have you learned any helpful information since we last spoke?” he asks pointedly.

Except Rey could swear he is directing the question to her. There is a arrogant smile on his face. She immediately thinks of their last conversation, where she had clearly not known enough about how to take care of the ache within her. It was a moment of vulnerability, one she does not want to repeat.

“I know enough already!” she tells Ben bitterly, even as she flushes with heat down to her chest.

She can’t help but think of the holo-vid and her subsequent explorations. At first, she had been hesitant, touching her entrance lightly while circling her clit with her dominant hand. She had become very wet, the emptiness inside her nearly unbearable, before she tentatively pushed a single finger into that tight, warm place.

It was different than she expected. The walls that tightened around her finger were not smooth, but complex and full of texture. She had pushed her finger gently in and out of that channel, still touching her clit, for a very, very long time. Finally, her thighs began to shake and she made small whimpering noises that didn’t sound like her at all. All of the tension inside of her released, giving her the relief she sought, but the pleasure was stronger and more intense than usual. The pressure of the finger inside of her soothed a deeper need, her walls fluttering and clenching around the intrusion as she closed her thighs around her hand. She had lain in bed afterward, trying not to think about how large Ben’s hand was in comparison to hers.

Then she had done it all over again.

“Well then,” Ben says, drawing her back to the present. The cadence of his voice is amused and seductively alluring. “Why don’t you show me?”

Rey looks up in disbelief. He tilts his head, issuing the challenge.

“I mean what I say,” Ben says evenly, looking right at her. She no longer suspects that he is purposefully conducting this conversation on two levels.

“No,” she chokes out, horrified. “No, I won’t.”

There is a long silence this time, as he listens to his surroundings. She wonders with whom he is speaking. There are reports that the First Order has converged on the Core planet of Chandrila, a bastion of freedom and intellectual progress. Rey is curious to know if she has stumbled into the Supreme Leader’s war council.

“The opposing forces have their own methods,” he declares, finally finding his opportunity to speak. “Though different from yours, I’m sure you’ll find they work well enough.”

Her eyes go wide. Is he admitting that he too has _methods_ for handling his own needs? Or is he offering to show her something new about herself?

As she is trying to sort it out, he does something she does not expect. The hand that is not clenched around the armrest spreads along his broad thigh, moving the folds of his long tunic aside. There is a distinct ridge, a swell in the confining fabric of his pants that cannot be mistaken for anything other than his cock.

“Ben?” she gasps, scrambling off the bed. Though she can’t see his surroundings, surely someone on his end of the connection must have noticed. “Ben!”

Abruptly, he slams his hand flat, horizontal across the air in front of him. She hears the contact reverberate, taking a step back. His eyes gleam at the shock in her eyes. “I’ve had enough of your excuses. Do you have what I asked for, or not?”

She can almost see it: Ben in his chair, his councilors of war seated around him, and a grand holotable between them all, hiding the evidence of his blatant arousal to everyone. But not to her.

“You…you can’t be serious,” she exhales. Whether it is in relief or horror, she isn’t sure. “I’m not…there are other people…just because you’re bored…”  

“I’ll make it worth your while, councilors,” he promises.

“No.” She steps towards him defiantly. “I want to be alone with you.”

His dark eyes widen as she spins her rejection into an offer.

“Then we’ll do this your way,” Ben says.

 

* * *

 

General Hux is seated directly across from Ben, entirely unaware that Rey, the first of the new Jedi, is among them. There are eight other war councilors, one from each sector, reporting on recent developments. They have no idea of the torment their Supreme Leader is currently enduring.

Rey is stretched out on the massive holotable at the center of his war council, lying on her side facing him with a patient but drowsy expression on her face. Her elbow is bent, her hand tucked under her cheek. Her hair is dry and clean, falling around her shoulders.

She must be in her bed, covered by her blankets, but Ben only sees her gauzy tunic and sleep pants, which cover her legs this time. It is obvious that she isn’t wearing any bindings beneath her tunic. His cock throbs when he realizes that he can just barely make out the dusky shadows of her nipples beneath the fabric. It takes every shred of control he possesses not to release his shaft from its confines, to show it to her, to stroke himself to completion under the table.

The guilt that follows that urge is like water flooding his lungs. He knows such an act would likely disgust her. And yet…her reaction to his clothed arousal had been so endearing. Wide-eyed shock as she noticed the bulge tenting his pants. Her frantic shout of “Ben!” had nearly made him laugh. He can’t help but wonder how she would respond seeing him in full.

Ben knows she can’t hear the advice he is being given by the commanding officers. He is careful to make his own responses deliberately vague. The last thing he needs is Rey running off to his mother to report on First Order tactical strategies. He responds when he is expected to, omitting names of planets and systems, referring instead to gridlines on the holo.

She is more of a distraction than he cares to admit. Although she is good and quiet, letting him listen to the reports, her mere presence is enough to heat his blood. The girl has no idea what she has unleashed in him. She turns on her back to face the ceiling, sighing in frustration. He grips the chair tighter when she presses her thighs together and shifts her hips.

Catching him looking, Rey whispers, “Is it a long meeting?”

“Supreme Leader?” Hux says sharply. “Would you like the Grand Admiral to repeat the strategy for the initial descent?”

“Yes,” he says quietly, looking at Rey. Behind her, Hux’s face contorts unpleasantly. “My apologies, I’ve had a great deal on my mind. Please continue.”

The Grand Admiral summarizing the plan for the initial siege of Chandrila sputters for a moment, unused to such deferential treatment. Ben knows he has never been considered a patient man. “T-thank you, Supreme Leader. As I was saying, the attack on Chandrila will commence-“

Ben listens as much as he is able, with Rey’s pretty lips parted and staring at him. Her hands clench and unclench at her sides. She sits up abruptly.

“Can I see?” she whispers.

His mind goes utterly blank. Surely he has misheard her, or misinterpreted the question. But she stands up, moving closer to him with a predatory hunger in her eyes. Placing her hands on his thighs, she lowers herself to her knees. She reaches out across the bond; he can feel her yearning to make contact.

Her fingers brush against his hardness.

“Yes,” he answers.

 

* * *

 

It is clear that Ben is not going to assist her. When Rey touches the fabric at the front of his pants, he looks straight ahead and fixes his expression into something stoic and unreadable. He grants her permission, though, which is all she cares about.

She stays on her knees between his thighs for a long time, summoning her courage as she runs her fingers along the distinct ridge. She wonders if it is painful for him, to have such a sensitive part of him trapped like this. The guide had only shown her the different stages of male arousal, not what would happen if an erection was not taken care of. Ben’s knuckles are white where his hand grips his chair and his whole body is tense, as if every touch causes him pain. If they were alone, she would ask him.

Rey undoes the series of clasps at the front of his pants and she hears him inhale sharply each time her fingers press against something sensitive. The fabric opens for her and she shifts it aside, shocked when his member immediately stands rigid, pointed directly at her.

She stares at it for a moment in fascination. It is unlike any cock she has ever seen: clean and pale, curved slightly upward. The head is more bulbous, flushed darker than the rest, weeping with a tiny bit of clear fluid at a small opening in the tip. His balls look soft and vulnerable, yet heavy and masculine, all at once. She reaches up to trail her fingers lightly down the shaft, balking at how much longer and thicker it is than the single finger with which she had pleasured herself.

She knows with certainty that she is meant to take that long, hardened shaft into her body. Just the sight of him makes the ache in her core nearly unbearable. Her walls flutter around nothing, begging to be filled with something more than her slender finger. But he is so large that it seems impossible to Rey that they can be fitted together naturally.

She glances up at Ben, expecting his gaze to still be fixed on his unseen audience, but instead his dark eyes are watching her fingers where they rest at the base of his cock. She pulls them away immediately, as though scalded, remembering that she had only asked to see, not touch.

“I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking…”

His jaw clenches. “Councilors.”

She pulls her hand to her chest, waiting for the sting of rejection.

“I must ask you to leave. We’ll resume in the morning, when I am better rested,” he says, his voice heavy with finality.

Rey exhales with relief. He is sending _them_ away, not her. Several long moments pass, as he waits for the others to leave.

Without warning, he hauls her up, pulling her into his lap with her knees on either side of his broad thighs. In an instant, his mouth has captured hers desperately. His cock is trapped between them - as she settles against him, she can feel its weight pressing against her lower belly. But the way he is kissing her pushes that to the back of her mind. Ben’s lips are soft and warm, pressing against hers with single-minded purpose. His hands cradle her face with gentleness that no longer surprises her, thumbs stroking her cheeks.

“Ben,” she gasps. “I don’t think-“

“It’s alright,” he soothes her. “I just want to touch you.”

His hands move to her breasts, finding her hardening nipples under the thin fabric of her sleep tunic. Bowing his head, he closes his mouth around one of the dusky peaks, pressing the flat of tongue against it and swiping hard. He continues laving at her nipple until the fabric is soaked through and Rey is making tiny, desperate gasps with each lick. She shifts in his lap, twisting her fingers into his dark hair to secure him to her.

Ben groans impatiently, shoving her tunic up. She helps him remove it, raising her arms for him so that he can push it over her head. He leans back slightly, putting enough distance between them to take in the sight of her. There is something devout in his gaze as he covers both of her breasts with his hands.

“You’re _aching_ , Rey. I can feel you…”

He runs his thumbs back and forth over the peaks, and she moans at the sensation. At the sound, he pinches them harshly and turns them between his fingers. She whimpers and throws her head back, grabbing his wrists.

“Not so hard,” she whispers, even though a part of her likes the way his manipulation of her nipples has reddened the sensitive skin.  “Can you use your mouth again?”

He does as she requests. She flushes when he takes the slight weight of her right breast in his hand, embarrassed at how small it seems. When he sucks at her nipple, rasping his tongue against it, his mouth covers most of her breast and his hand covers the rest entirely. But the sensation is sublime, making her forget her uncertainty. Within minutes, he has her writhing her hips against him again, her little hands fisted into his dark robes.

“Ben,” she moans. “I need…it _hurts_ so much…”

He moves one of his hands down to rest against her lower abdomen, sensing the source of her distress. The ache inside of her is so terrible that she wonders if it might be worse than the pain of letting him fill her.

He picks her up, wrapping his strong hands around her thighs to secure her to him. He kisses her mouth again, his tongue pressing against the seam of her lips. She opens for him, letting him stroke her tongue with his own.

He rips his mouth away, dark eyes looking at her. “Where? Where are you, right now?”

“In my quarters. There’s a sleeping platform.”

“Shared?” he questions.

“The platform?” she asks, brow furrowing in confusion. Though she has spoken in innocence, she feels the singe of his anger across the bond. He is nearly choking with fury at the thought of someone else lying next to her at night, and she realizes her mistake too late.

“The _quarters_ ,” he corrects her, his voice raw.

“Oh.” Rey swallows, lowering her eyes. This is another mistake: with her arms around his shoulders and legs around his middle, his cock is still pressed against her stomach, swollen and neglected. She rips her eyes back up to his. “No, I’m alone. There’s a lock.”  

Ben is not noble enough to ignore the implication of her offering to lock the door. He sets her down on the ground, the floor cold against her bare feet.

“Lock it,” he commands.

She can feel his eyes on her as she crosses the room and fumbles with the lock. When she returns to stand in front of him, she can see that he’s still seething about her implication that she might have shared her bed with others.

“Don’t be absurd,” she bites out, his thoughts obvious from his expression. “You know I haven’t. And even if I had…”

He towers over her, his mouth forming a grim line, and she falters. She had intended to say that even if she had, it would have been none of his concern. But his face leaves no room for that sort of lie.

“I _know_ you haven’t,” he says through gritted teeth. “You couldn’t. We are designed for each other.”

She shakes her head defiantly, crossing her arms over her bare chest. She glances at his cock, exposed while the rest of his body is still covered by his dark robes. She has seen many kinds of male organs, some human and others alien. His is not the largest, but it is intimidating enough to make her certain that their coupling would be unpleasant for her.

“I doubt that. You’d hurt me.”

“No. You’re wrong. Your body was made for this…and it will accept everything I have.”

Her heart hammers against her ribcage, her throat impossibly tight. “It won’t.”

“Lie down,” he says, close enough now that he could kiss her again if he wanted to. “Let me show you.”

Rey doesn’t know whether he is right or not, but she thinks perhaps it doesn’t matter. She wants him regardless. So she steps backwards and lays down on her bed, shifting until she reaches the center. Her torso is bare and cold, nipples pebbling again. In a single graceless motion, she hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her sleep pants and shoves them down, kicking them away.

When she is done, there’s nothing protecting her from his gaze. She feels wetness between her legs. When she presses them firmly together to hide her arousal from him, she is mortified to find that she can also feel it on the insides of her thighs.

“Open up for me, Rey,” he says, running his hand from her knee to the juncture between her thighs.

She shakes her head. “I want to see you first.”

Ben disrobes slowly and much more precisely than she had. Every part of him is broad and well-muscled, the ridges of his shoulders and chest well defined. His legs are strong and powerful. There are scars everywhere: a burn mark at his shoulder, webbed scar tissue marring his side, the partially-healed split across his face and shoulder. She sighs when he is naked before her, drinking in the sight of him.

Ben kneels at the foot of her bed, gripping her by her thighs and spreading her open. She feels a flash of heat deep in her core when she remembers that he is now the Supreme Leader, one of the most powerful men in the galaxy…and he is on his knees for her. He drags her toward him so that her knees are thrown over his shoulders, pressing kisses and gentle bites to the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. She knows he can see all of her, but somehow his touch alleviates her concern.

“You’re stunning,” he murmurs, dark eyes roaming over her. He drags a finger through her folds, gathering her wetness and spreading it over her clit. She gasps as he starts to move his fingers in delicate circles, reaching her hand down to stop him.

“No,” she demands. “Inside.”

She is so slick that the first finger he pushes inside of her slips in easily. He works it in and out slowly, watching her carefully. This is familiar to her now. She pants and moans under his touch, legs trembling with pleasure.

“That’s it. Let me hear you.”

Rey closes her eyes and whimpers, canting her hips up, seeking more friction. In response, he gives her several things at once. Ben lowers his head and she feels his tongue dart quickly between her folds, tasting her. He begins laving at her clit, not bothering to still her hips when she tries to push up against his mouth. She feels another finger breach her entrance, stretching her to fullness. And his free hand returns to cup her breast, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her nipple. Rey keens, the pressure building in her core as his fingers curl inside of her.

“Ben?” she gasps, eyes flying open as he pushes his fingers against something deep inside of her. It is more than just the feeling of fullness. This is something else entirely, a sensitive place that he is working his fingers over, again and again. She lets out a strangled scream, frustrated that she can’t find relief.

“Ben, please…ah, I can’t…”

It isn’t enough. He is doing this on purpose.

He removes his mouth and hands, leaving her straining and breathless. He crawls over her, settling his heavy body between her legs, claiming her mouth again. “Do you know what you need, Rey?”

She buries her face against his shoulder.

“No,” he says immediately, drawing back so that she can’t hide. “Look at me. Do you know what you need?”

“You,” she answers. “I need you inside me.”

“That’s right,” he says, eyes dark as a black ocean. “Don’t be afraid.”

Her thighs are slick, trembling with need. She shakes her head. “I’m not. I trust you.”

He nods, reaching between their bodies, aligning his cock with her center. She can feel the tip pressed against her, barely breaching her body as he moves slightly. She looks down curiously, wanting to see how they join.

 _Your body was made for this,_ he’d assured her, and Rey tells herself that he has never lied to her. She breathes, forcing herself to relax as more of his cock enters her. She whimpers at the foreign intrusion, but he is right. It is not pain as she has known it. It is not sharp or jagged or biting. As tight as she is, her body still yields to him. Her walls stretch to accommodate his shaft as he slowly pushes deeper and deeper into her. _It will accept everything I have_.

His thighs are pressed against the backs of her thighs, his chest against her chest, his hard length buried in her body. Rey takes a shaking breath when he touches her cheek with his hand, coaxing her to look at him. She has not felt this aligned with him since their battle in the crimson throne room, where everything was subsumed by the energy between them. This feels just like that: a flickering flame, a shared energy as her body parts and opens for him.

When he withdraws and slowly thrusts back into her, she doesn’t feel pleasure right away. Only the sense of rightness that they are finally joined. Her body still strains at his largeness. The discomfort of the pressure of him within her makes her tense beneath him. Ben presses kisses to her mouth and the column of her neck, his breath hot against her skin.

Then he starts talking to her, a sudden torrent of words pouring out of him. The sound of his voice makes her shiver.

“I’ve missed you,” he gasps, pulling out of her until only the head of him is still inside. He surges forward, making her cry out at the sensation, at the push of his cock against her walls. “When you left me behind, it hurt worse than anything. Anything.”

“I couldn’t stay,” she tells him, thinking of his offer to her in the throne room. It would be a lie to deny that she had been tempted…that she is tempted still. And now with him inside of her, she wonders how she could have ever stood to be separated from him.

“Yes,” he replies. “I understand that now.”

He parts her thighs further, lifting them to wrap around his waist. It is slower and deeper like this. Rey gasps in pleasure for the first time since their joining. He runs his hand soothingly along her thigh, the narrow of her waist, the curve of her breast.

“I thought of you every day,” he says reverently. “When I woke up. When I lay down at night. When I struck down my enemies; when I raised new cities from what was left of the old. You were with me. Wherever I went, you were already there.”

“I didn’t ask you for that,” she says, his words a reminder of why she had denied him in the first place. “I never wanted that.”

She wants to tell him that she will _never_ stand beside him as he burns everything down to ashes and rubble, but words fail her. Instead, she scrapes her nails along his shoulders as punishment, letting him know that she still disapproves of his vision for their future. He hisses at the pain, eyes darkening as he thrusts into her harder, hitting the same place inside of her that he had teased with his fingers earlier.

“You saw it, too,” he says through gritted teeth, watching as each thrust draws another sharp cry of pleasure from her. “You can continue to deny it…but you know the truth. Our futures are bound together.”   

Rey shakes her head, but her body betrays her. In her desperation to take him deeper, she tilts her hips up, attempting to meet his movements with her own. It doesn’t work. She ruins it, making his rhythm falter and his shaft slip out of her. The sudden emptiness stuns her.

He stills her with the gentle press of the heel of his palm against her hip.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

Ben shakes his head, reaching between them to guide his cock back to her entrance. This time, when he sheathes himself within her, she stays very still, afraid to disrupt his movements again.

“Rey…you can move. It’s alright. I’m yours,” he declares. “I’m yours. It’s just us. Do whatever you want with me.”

“I don’t know how,” she admits quietly.

“Here,” he murmurs, gripping her hips and slowly shifting so that he is on his back and she is sitting astride him, his shaft still buried in her. She moves tentatively, gently rising on her knees and letting herself slowly fall back down.

She is so full of him that her inner walls grip at him tightly, fluttering around him. She grinds her hips against him, keeping him deep inside of her. That small movement makes her body sing, so she repeats it, feeling the head of his cock push at a sensitive place inside of her. Without thinking, her hand moves between her thighs and she rubs at her clit, impatiently seeking her release.

“Rey,” he chokes out, his voice strangled as he throws his head back. He pushes his hips up against her with a groan. “Please…this is… _please_ …”

She realizes that the slow circles of her hips aren’t helping him, so she tries to lift herself up and down again. But he grabs her hips and stops her.

“No,” Ben says through gritted teeth. “Keep going. You can…gods, please. Please, just…use me…”

Rey hesitates. “But…what about you?”

“Force. I’m _inside_ you, Rey…and I’m so damn close…just, please. Anything. Anything you want.”

Ben is practically shaking beneath her, his pupils blown wide. His eyes are fixed on her face, as though he is afraid to look at her body. A surge of affection fills her as she realizes that he’s denying himself release for her sake. His restraint is beautiful to her, but at the same time it makes her chest hurt. He’s still trying to show her that he can give her something more. That he has something useful to offer her other than himself.

 _Selfish, selfish, selfish girl!_ Rey thinks suddenly, her body going rigid as she finally understands. _Why wouldn’t he think you are using him? Isn’t that what you tried to do, in the throne room when he gave you everything and you asked him for more?_

“Ben,” she says, placing her hands on his broad chest. She skims her fingers slowly over his skin, then flattens her hands, centering herself. “I can’t do that. I can’t just _use_ you.”

She keeps her eyes on his, lifting herself up until only the tip of his cock is inside of her. When she lowers her body, taking him in again, a shudder passes through him. Rey reaches for his hand, leading it down her stomach, through the thatch of hair between her legs, until his fingers are pressed against her clit.

“Do you want to touch me here?” she whispers. He’d tried earlier, but she’d stopped him and made him put his fingers inside of her. And just now, she had touched herself, as though she didn’t think he would be enough. Selfish, impatient. Only ever thinking about what she wants.

“It’s the only thing I want,” he confesses hoarsely.

“You can,” she says breathlessly, body suddenly humming with excitement. “I want that, too.”

He shifts his hand so that his fingers are spread flat against her lower belly and begins to move his thumb in delicate circles over the sensitive bundle of nerves, pressing harder as he gains confidence. The combined sensation of his thumb working her clit and his shaft filling her is incredible, better than anything she’s ever felt on her own. When she begins to move again, raising and lowering her hips, leaving him only to encompass him again with her tight, slick heat, Ben shakes his head and looks completely broken.

“Rey. I’m not…I need…”

She feels a pressure under her rib cage and behind her eyes as she allows the bond to open fully, revealing the full strength of her emotions. They are both there, together in her mind, and it is so much more powerful than she expected. “ _Ben._ ”

His restraint snaps. In one swift motion, he has her pinned beneath him again. He thrusts desperately, burying himself as deep as possible inside her, ragged moans escaping him. And then he abruptly pulls out of her, his hand fisting around his length. Her lips part, her eyes transfixed on his fingers as they slide over the shaft that is still wet with her arousal. Then he shouts her name and white fluid spills from the head of his cock. Her core aches and clenches as she watches him stroke himself, watches more of his come erupt in thick ropes over her belly, until he is finished.

For a moment he stares down at her body. He reaches out a shaking hand to touch her stomach, where he’s marked her as his. And then he leans over her, kissing her deeply, his shoulders still trembling with his release. Tears spring into her eyes, an overwhelming feeling of rejection stinging her even though he is still right here with her. She tried to show him how much she wanted him…him, and nothing else….but then he…

She lets him press kisses to her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. Her hands sift through his hair, confused, trying to understand him. He is so soft, so tender with her. It should stir her heart. But she only feels sad and empty and hurt.

“Ben?” she questions, wondering if maybe this is yet another thing she doesn’t understand. Something he must teach her. “Why didn’t you…?”

He draws back to look at her.

“You could have…finished…inside me.”

She speaks the words very quietly, unable to meet his eyes. The moment they leave her mouth, she thinks that if the Force were merciful, it would end their connection so that she doesn’t have to face him.

“Rey,” Ben says, his voice oddly formal and polite considering that only moments before he’d covered her stomach in his spend. “I think I misheard you.”

For once, the Force is merciful.

 

* * *

 

Rey lies on her bed for a long time afterward, until his come is cool against her skin and she is shivering, naked on top of the sheets. Even though she never found her release, her body feels calm. No, not calm. It feels detached, as though it isn’t her body anymore…or perhaps it is a different body now, still hers, but altered in some unseen way.

She should get up and clean the evidence of him from her belly. She should scrub herself until her skin is red and raw and she can forget.

Except she doesn’t want to forget. She only wants to understand.

 

* * *

 

When Rey finally does get up, it hurts a little.

She puts her clothes back on, not bothering - or perhaps not wanting - to wipe his come from her skin just yet. She grabs a bar of soap from her closet. The refreshers on the Resistance destroyer only have sonics, but the _Falcon_ has a water unit and that is what she desperately needs right now. As she makes her way to the lower decks of the ship, she tries and fails to ignore the fact that her center aches from how large Ben was and how urgently he’d taken her at the end. Her clothes are now probably dirty, too.

It occurs to her that she is walking through the hallways of a Resistance destroyer with the Supreme Leader’s come under her clothing. She panics and picks up her pace until she is practically running, her heart only slowing when she reaches the hangar bay. The _Falcon_ is tucked away in a corner, behind the big cargo ships and a few outdated x-wing fighters.

When the loading ramp closes behind her, she breathes deeply, the smells of grease and oil and singed wires oddly comforting. The _Falcon_ is a garbage ship, and Rey is just a scavenger girl, so they’re well-matched.

She immediately goes to the refresher and turns the water on hot, collapsing onto the ground. Steam fills the room, the warmth helping a little with her chilled skin. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“Damn it,” she says.

Then she picks herself up and strips and steps into the water unit. As the water runs over her body, she tells herself it doesn’t mean anything that he didn’t want to come inside of her.

But it does. It means something to her, something she can’t even pinpoint. She only knows that she’d wanted it. She’d wanted it so badly.

 

* * *

 

Rey puts on a man’s spare tunic that she finds in one of the bunks, opens up one of the secret compartments under the floor that Chewie had shown her while on Ahch-to, locates a three-hundred-year-old bottle of stolen Corellian whiskey, pours herself a generous glass, and sits alone in the pilot’s chair with her knees curled up to her chest.

By the time she reaches the bottom of her third glass, she decides that she hates him. She’s glad he didn’t deem her a worthy enough receptacle for his sacred Skywalker seed. Kriff him. He doesn’t know anything about sex, or her, or the Force, or sex! And he’s not even attractive. He just has deep, lovely eyes and soft lips, and big hands, and a cock that isn’t inflamed with disease. That’s not so hard to come by. Besides, none of those things matter, because he didn’t even make her come with his thick, pretty cock. He just let her be vulnerable and then jerked himself off all over her and now she will hate him forever.

On her fourth glass, she cries, which feels nice. When she’s finished with crying, her bladder forces her to stumble back to the refresher, where she looks in the mirror and sees a half-drunk girl with messy hair and red eyes who doesn’t hate Ben Solo at all.

Rey looks pathetic enough that she pours the rest of her whiskey down the drain and makes herself a caf in the galley, returning to the cockpit to try and sober up before morning. She collapses in the pilot’s chair and downs her caf even though it burns her tongue, hoping that it will somehow cut through the whiskey haze in her head. She really should have stopped drinking when she started to think of his cock as _pretty_.

She wonders what he’s doing right now, remembering absently that he’d been in some First Order war council room the entire time they were together. He probably just picked up his clothes off the floor, shoved his pale, softening cock back in his pants, and walked back to his room like he hadn’t just had Rey-the-First-of-the-New-Jedi on her back with her legs spread for him.

Like she was nothing to him after all.

 

* * *

 

Rey’s final words haunt Ben for weeks. Such a simple phrase: _You could have finished inside me._ But it doesn’t make any sense to him at all. Finishing inside of her, when they know so little about the nature of the bond, would have put them at great risk. In fact, had he had thought about it more, he would have taken other precautions. The last thing he wants is to bring a child into this war.

He must have heard her wrong.

It sends wild fantasies into his head anyway. He imagines his come inside of her, dripping out of her, white against her delicate, pink folds. She was so beautiful there, her smooth inner labia hidden beneath the outer lips, until she parted her thighs and showed him everything. She was more stunning than he could have constructed in his mind.

He thinks about gathering the come that drips out of her and pushing it back inside with his fingers, making sure she accepts all of him. Or perhaps she might allow him to leave his cock inside of her after he finishes, so that his spend leaks out of her body around his shaft.

He imagines a future where her belly is round with his child. Her breasts heavier, her body curved in places that it isn’t now. He would hide her away on some distant, peaceful planet where this accursed war can’t touch her.

His thoughts are absurd. After what happened, she’ll likely never want him again. It was supposed to be about her and her needs. Instead, he had lost control when she unexpectedly opened the bond and…

He can’t think about that. He’d degraded her. Humiliated her. He should have made sure she was satisfied, and then waited until the connection closed to take care of his own arousal alone. Or spilled his come anywhere else…on the holotable, his hand, the floor.

Anywhere but on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment! <3
> 
> Beta'd by @i-am-thesenate. This will likely be a two-shot.


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